When you go into a hospital, even for something as simple as a broken leg, you have an expectation that your documents are only to be used by your physicians and nurses. At the very least, you don’t expect that your X-rays and records will end up being used — with no attempt made to hide your identity — in a college class. [More]
Facebook Is Not Interested In Your So-Called 'Privacy' Preferences
By April 18, 2012
If there’s anything we should have learned about Facebook by now, it’s that “privacy” is an essentially meaningless word to the company, and any privacy settings that you have now will be undone in the next update. Jeff, who is a writer, uses Facebook but keeps his profile pretty locked down in order to keep his personal life separate from his public persona. (We empathize.) He set up his account so that his list of friends wouldn’t be visible to his other friends in order to prevent people he knows from adding virtual strangers who happen to be on Jeff’s friends list. [More]
A Privacy Advocate Seeks Public Help To Build A Spy-Proof ISP
By April 13, 2012
The Patriot Act of 2001 is just one example of how the U.S. government is trying to legally beef up its electronic surveillance power on the Internet Service and other digital communications networks. But for Nicholas Merrill, the increasing amount of such government powers has sparked the drive to build a communication service that puts its customers’ privacy first and foremost. And he’s seeking your dollars to help to do it. [More]
Report: Charity Tax Forms Expose Nearly Half A Million Social Security Numbers
By April 10, 2012
According to researchers from an identity protection company, publicly available tax forms have potentially put hundreds of thousands of identities at risk, publishing 472,866 Social Security Numbers in a five-year span. Charities unnecessarily included the numbers in 990 forms, which are part of public record. [More]
Maybe Your New TV Is Watching You
By March 20, 2012
It’s the entire point, really. New smart TVs from Samsung boast video cameras with facial-recognition software and microphones with speech-recognition software. They can tell who’s in the room, understand spoken commands, and be controlled with gestures. That’s great news for those of us who can never find the remote, but made our friends over at HD Guru wonder: is there anyone behind that camera watching us back?
Reminder: Turn Off Your Google Web History Today
By March 1, 2012
Starting today, Google’s new unified privacy policy kicks in, meaning that your web browsing history can be tracked and shared been other Google products like Google+ and YouTube. So if that strikes you as a bit invasive, there’s an easy way to turn it off. [More]
Netflix Pays Out $9M To Settle Privacy Violation Suit
By February 14, 2012
A 1988 law continues to be the “buffering” in Netflix’s success stream. The Video Privacy Protection Act, which forbids movie rental companies from sharing customers’ rental history, is not only stopping Netflix from integrating movie-streaming with Facebook in the U.S., but has cost the company $9 million to settle a class-action lawsuit. [More]
Google Reaching Its Grabby Arms Out To Combine More Of Your Personal information
By January 25, 2012
Google wants to change things up a bit and grant itself the right to combine your personal information across its products. So how is it planning on doing that? By simply rewriting its privacy policy to let you know about it first, which they figure you’ll agree to if you want to keep using Google stuff. [More]
Hospital CEO Thinks It's Perfectly OK To Show Patient's Records To Newspaper
By January 4, 2012
Last January, a woman in California says she was billed by a hospital for a treatment she never received. She took her complaint to the folks at California Watch, who published a story about her predicament. But when a local newspaper went to verify the information, the hospital’s CEO had absolutely no problem showing up at the reporter’s door to rifle through that patient’s file without her permission. [More]
D.C. Residents, Recycle Your Cat Litter Or Face Garbage Snooping, Fines
By December 14, 2011
The Washington, D.C. Department of Public Works is apparently so dedicated to enforcing recycling laws that they’re willing to dig through trash to find evidence to issue fines. A resident says she’s been stuck with $2,000 worth of fines, some of which come from a government employee who admits to discovering her violations by snooping in her garbage. [More]
AT&T Says Hackers Tried To Swipe Account Info
By November 22, 2011
According to AT&T, hackers tried to break into some users’ accounts and make off with some private information. The company calls the attack an “organized and systematic attempt,” but more importantly, a failure. [More]
Report: Google Analytics Can Reveal Identities Of Anonymous Bloggers
By November 18, 2011
Those who harbor secret online identities may not be as anonymous as they think. Determined snoopers can potentially uncover bloggers with a little legwork and the use of Google Analytics. [More]
UK City Forcing Taxi Drivers To Record All Passengers
By November 15, 2011
You’re probably familiar with the long-running HBO special “Taxicab Confessions,” in which cab passengers –often under the influence of some sort of intoxicant — open their hearts, minds, and sometimes their blouses to drivers of taxis rigged with multiple hidden cameras. Now the UK city of Oxford is turning its entire fleet of cabs into rolling recording devices. [More]
![Thank You For [Not] Being A Chase Customer, Here Is Your Junk Mail](http://consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/chasethumb.jpg?w=124)
Thank You For [Not] Being A Chase Customer, Here Is Your Junk Mail
By November 9, 2011
Jonathan received a letter from Chase thanking him for being a customers, and asking him to send it back in order to opt out of receiving promotional mailings. Which is interesting, because Jonathan not only isn’t a Chase customer, he doesn’t live at that particular address full-time or normally receive mail there. Concerned about identity theft, he learned that he wasn’t the only non-customer being thanked for patronizing Chase. But they won’t let him get off their mailing list, either. [More]
Hundreds Of People's Tax Returns Found Dumped In Front Of Jackson Hewitt Office Because They Were "So Heavy"
By November 4, 2011
A soggy pile of hundreds of old tax returns was found in front of an abandoned Jackson Hewitt tax prep office in San Francisco in late October. The papers had social security numbers, names, addresses, and phone numbers, a potential goldmine for any identity thief who got their hands on them. [More]
Senator Is Victim Of Credit Card Fraud, Thieves Rack Up $12,000 At Walmart
By October 28, 2011
It’s a measure of the brazenness and ubiquity of identity theft that a U.S. Senator has become the latest victim of credit card fraud. Thieves stole the credit card numbers belonging to Senator Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, embedded them on the magnetic strip of a fake credit card, and went on a $12,000 Walmart shopping spree. [More]
Groups Call On TransUnion To Stop Selling Employee Credit Reports To Employers
By October 26, 2011
Employers pull the credit reports of prospective employees as a way to determine whether they’re trustworthy and good at managing money. But now more than 25 civil rights groups, labor unions and consumer groups have banned together to demand that TransUnion stop selling credit reports to employers. They say the practice is invasive, discriminatory, and worst of all, doesn’t even work. [More]
